Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The global semiconductor market, currently in the grip of a supply-chain stall, will fall by 28 percent in 2009, according to Malcolm Penn, founder and principal analyst with market research firm Future Horizons Ltd.
Although Penn has swung from being one of the most optimistic of semiconductor analysts to being one of the most pessimistic in terms of a percentage figure, his number still assumes the resumption of sequential growth in the second half of 2009 and Penn predicts a recovery in 2010. If the global economy enters a deflationary spiral or continues to decline for other reasons the semiconductor market could exhibit a double-dip and two years of declining sales, Penn said.
In any case Penn's 28 percent would be an unprecedented fall. It is being driven by the high degree to which the semiconductor industry had become dependent on the strongly discretionary consumer sector and the extreme nature of the global economic malaise Penn said. "The speed of collapse in Q4 was unprecedented. It simply stopped dead," he said.
Penn calculated the overall 2009 figure by considering the level of sequential falls seen by companies in the fourth quarter of 2008 and their forecasts for the first quarter of 2009. Overall Penn sees Q4 as being 22 or 23 percent down sequentially. "Some companies did worse and some companies did better," said Penn pointing to Nvidia with sales down 50 percent in Q4 and Intel down 20 percent in the same quarter.
"TI is giving guidance for Q1 of between 5 and 30 percent. Basically they are saying they just don't know," said Penn. He said that Future Horizons' analysts had looked across numerous companies and reckoned Q1 could be down sequentially 20 percent, with the following quarters growing 2, 12 and 3 percent sequentially in the succeeding quarters. "That results in a 28 percent fall and it all hinges on Q1. If Q1 is better than 20 percent so will be the whole year. If Q1 is worse then the year will be worse; it could be 30 percent, or more."
Penn's prediction is based on a relatively simple V-shaped dip in the semiconductor market. This would result in Q2 2009 being the lowest point of the collapse with year on year sales 35 percent down on where they were in Q2, 2008.
By: DocMemory
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